As You Were (5 page)

“Good enough for me.” He dragged a chair back as if to sit, but didn’t. “Are they treating you okay?”

“They’re great. I don’t think I’m an easy border, though.” She guessed by his demeanor and the glasses that he wasn’t a Casanova. He wore a thick MIT sweatshirt, khaki pants and old dirty sneakers.

He ran his fingers through the shock of brown hair at his forehead, and flashed a charismatic smile. “I guess that’s understandable.” Then adding a bit sadly, “I’m sorry you don’t know where home is—”

She watched him sit down, cross his ankle over his knee and struggle with some discomfort that seemed to be about a deficit in social interaction. “How did you happen to find me after the accident?”

He snapped his head up, seemingly pleased for some prompting. “Oh, I was, um—I saw the accident happen... I was coming around the curve after supper with my mom, and I was behind you about the time your car went—” he stopped himself. “I’m sorry. That was very insensitive of me.”

She shrugged. “It’s okay. I haven’t been able to remember the accident, either. Maybe it’s a blessing in disguise.”

“Maybe.” He pushed out of the chair, plunging his hands into the front pockets of his slacks, and strode to the window. “Where will you go when you leave here?”

“That’s a good question.” Brittany rolled the tabloid she was holding into a tube and bounced it on her leg, noticing the way he continually jingled the change in his pocket. “I don’t know if I have an answer to it yet. I’ll stay here until I figure it out.”

“Well, hey, it seems...” He looked around. “like a nice enough place to be...” An awkward silence ensued, and he jingled more change, his eyes wandering to the windows. “I’m sorry. I’m...
I’m not a big people-person. I’m a bit of a nerd, I’m afraid.” He punctuated this information by pushing his glasses up higher on his nose.

Brittany’s face relaxed into a half-grin. “That’s all right.”

“You’re a strong young woman.” He moved back to the chair, but again, did not sit. The smile reappeared briefly. He grasped the back of the chair with both hands, regarding her timidly.

“Thank you.”

“So. Will you leave a forwarding address...when you—when you know where you’re going, so I can at least send flowers?” He shoved his hands in his back pockets, then, and studied his dirty sneakers.

“You don’t have to send flowers, Max. You saved my life. I’d say that was quite sufficient.” She tried to smile warmly.

“Um...
ok. Maybe we could...
um...
go get lunch sometime—” –adding quickly, “Or not, that’s up to you, I mean—” He rubbed the palm of one hand hard with his other thumb.

Brittany nodded. “Well, maybe. I think I have a lot on my plate right now. Anyway, thanks for coming by. I wish I could repay the favor, but—” she shrugged, smiling.

“Forget it. Just get better.” He smoothed the front of his slacks. “Good luck.” He lifted his hand in a brief wave and backed away, turning to stride from the room. Brittany noticed that he walked with more deliberation in his departure than in his arrival. Probably relieved to go back to his little basement and into the cyber world where he was more comfortable.
Shy young man. Not many of those left.

She touched the white gold watch at her wrist. The one that she had been wearing when she arrived. They gave it back to her along with some other jewelry in a zippy bag when she checked out. The engraving on the back had given hospital personnel her first name.

Precious little existed to reveal who she was. Most of it was white gold jewelry: a small band ringed with tiny turquoise stones, a nugget ring and the matching wristwatch, which was still ticking, even after being dunked in a river; a necklace with a strange emblem dangling from it that appeared to be an upside-down
y
, and a few crumpled dollar bills. Nothing that spoke of her identity. She unclasped the watch and read the engraving.

Merry Xmas ‘04, Brittany. I love you. T.

Who was “T”? Someone who loved me, obviously...
She focused intently on the letter “T,” hoping a name would come to mind this time, but instead exhaled her frustration, put the watch over her wrist and fastened it again.

7

POISED ON THE THRESHOLD BETWEEN DREAMS AND REALITY, distracted by the noise which niggled her eyes almost open, Tru guessed that the phone had been ringing for some time. She lifted the handset at the bedside table and rolled over on her back as she put the receiver to her ear. Her voice crackled like January leaves as she said hello. The voice at the other end identified itself as Macy, and she forced herself to sit up and rub her eyes, clear her throat. “Oh, Macy...
I’m sorry...
what’s—what’s up?”

“You sound terrible—”

“I was asleep.” Tru tried to focus on the crystalline snow clinging to the window pane across the dim room.

“I’m sorry. I almost hung up,” Macy said. “but I really feel like we need to talk.”

Tru rubbed her neck. “What’s wrong?”

“You are, kiddo. Your mother called me. She’s worried about you. You’ve got to snap out of it.”

“Macy, please, I—”

“Tru, I know what you’ve been going through, and believe me, I understand. But life goes on, or at least it’s supposed to. You’re going to lose everything you’ve worked so hard for if you don’t start thinking about yourself.”

Unaware that she cried, until a tear fell onto her hand, Tru wiped it away gruffly. “I know, Macy, but I...
I don’t know if she’s even alive, dammit! If I knew she was okay, maybe—”

“Sweetheart, listen to me. You have done everything in your power to find her. Maybe she doesn’t want to be found. In the meantime, your career is going down the tubes. I can’t keep rescheduling these gigs. You’ve got to get back in the studio and back on stage—soon.”

Tru felt her defenses go up. Macy didn’t seem to get it. Brittany was not some bed-buddy, she had been her lifemate. It had been as meaningful a union as any heterosexual marriage license would testify. And in one quick series of events, it had disappeared like melting snow in noonday sunshine. Tru experienced her absence as a quickening in her heart, a void space in her stomach, a dread.
Something happened to her
.

Macy waited on the line for Tru to answer, and it seemed long minutes before she heard her sniffling. “Tru? Honey, listen—do you need me to come up there?”

Tru lifted the neck of her T-shirt up to wipe her eyes. “No. I’m just worn out...”

“Didn’t you get some sleep?”

Tru blinked her vision into focus on the clock. “I had about six hours.”

“What are you going to do, Darlin’?” Macy’s voice came softly over the line, almost coaxing.

Tru’s attention was caught by the Raven beyond the window as it used a pine tree branch for a trampoline; the snow from the brittle limbs fell in puffs to the frozen ground. Tru wished her life were as simple as finding limbs to bounce on. She remembered a literature class in college, where they studied Poe’s,
The Raven
, and how it represented change and death. She had chosen Raven as her stage-name for the aspects of change it represented. Now she wondered if she’d only see it as a harbinger of death.
No. Brittany was not dead.
She wouldn’t allow herself to go there.
Quoth the Raven, ‘Nevermore...’

“Tru?”

The bird launched into the sky in a flurry of snow and feathers. Maybe it was a sign. “When do you want me in the studio?”

“Can you make it in the morning?”

“Yeah. I’ll be there.”

“Good girl. There’s money to be made with those golden pipes of yours. Hang tough, I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Try to catch up on the rest of your sleep before then, okay?” Macy’s voice had softened a bit more. “Do you still have Xanax?”

“Yeah.”

“Take one. Or take two. But get some rest. Give your mind and body a chance to recover.”

“I’ll try.” Tru tossed the receiver back into its cradle and pushed her fingers through her hair, scratching her scalp. Macy was right, of course. She had to start focusing on her career. The funds were getting low and she’d be getting behind in the bills in another month. Tru pushed herself up and went into the bathroom.

Facing herself in the mirror, she said, “Life’s a bitch, Private Morgan. Suck it up and drive on. Be all that you can be—” The pep talk was without sincerity, and she shook her head at the sad, dark-rimmed eyes of the young woman in the mirror.
Maybe one more search...
one more town today, and then she’d throw in the towel. She’d sleep for awhile and then get up and give it one more time.

She opened the bottle of Xanax.

Tru slid into the cold seat of the Cherokee and started the engine, feeling more rested since her additional five hours of sleep. As she waited for the heater to warm, she stared at the square panels which made up the garage door in front of her. If those squares were counties, she would surely have driven in all of them, searching for the one love who had given her life some color. Tru poured herself a cup of coffee from the thermos, knowing it to be the first of many, and

fastened the seat-belt. She backed the Cherokee and turned around, beginning a cautious journey down Castle Mountain Road.

Her cell phone chirped, and she grabbed it off the console, flipping it open.
Helki.

“Hey girl Just wanted to call and check on you.”

“Hey. Thanks.”

“What cha doin’?”

“I’m on my way to check out another crop of salvage yards.”

An awkward silence, then:
“Tru...I’m really sorry things are so...”

“I know. Thanks. When are you going be back?” Helki was visiting her family in Alaska for the holidays.

“My return flight is on the fifth, but, if you need me to—”

“Oh no. Don’t even go there. I’m okay. You need to be there. You don’t get to visit with your family very often. There’s nothing you can do anyway.”

“I can be there to support you, help you look for her... something.”

“You are being supportive. Just enjoy your visit. I’ve got to lay down the new guitar tracks and scratch vocals anyway starting tomorrow. We’ll hook up when you get back and go through the set list again, just you and me.”

After she closed the phone, she made a mental note to herself to spend more time developing a friendship with Helki. It was rare to find her sort these days, and she was a little fearful that she might need that very soon.

She released the direction of her thoughts to the fates, and focused on driving. Careful of slippery patches on the asphalt, Tru glanced over the map she held at eye level, noting its red circles; each circle signifying a town she had driven through, hoping for a sign of Brittany. She had called every police station, scouted every salvage yard, until the map looked like a polka-dotted swatch of fabric, without the dots colored in. With a Sharpie marker from the console, she drew the last circle around Montrose, tossed the map in the seat beside her, and settled in for another protracted, vexing journey down the mountain toward the miniscule hope of finding her lover.

Climbing back into the Cherokee, Tru grabbed the notebook from the dash, crossing out another address to another salvage yard, and stared at the only two left on the page for Montrose. If both of them yielded nothing, she would surrender to this vicious spiral of fate.

She drove to the address listed, and parked in front; it was a small yard. On foot, she searched the rows of cars to one side and began to make her way back up the other. As she stepped over a bumper in front of a jacked-up and recently rolled Bronco, she stopped. The silver paint caught the light and flashed in her eyes like a signal. The metal logo with the chrome letters, NISSAN, dangled bent, from the front fender.

Her knees began to quake, her heart hammering in her ears, as she moved around the mangled left front fender, the metal twisted, the paint removed in an ugly path of grooves and gouges. She bent to view the interior through unbroken windows. The seats and carpeting had sustained obvious water damage.

Her hand fluttered out for the stabilizing edge of the roof, and she moved toward the rear of the vehicle, turning toward the dash with her eyes closed. There’s nothing to indicate it is Brittany’s, she reassured herself, there are lots of Nissans this color, this year model...
she opened her eyes and saw that the knobs on the radio were covered by two Coke bottle caps.

She tried to step back, but in a quick whirl of grief, she stumbled, fell, got up and began to pace back and forth, the length of the car. Finally, she stopped at the driver’s door and stared through the window at the bottle caps. Her hands shot out and flipped up the door handle, firmly at first, then violently when it did not open. Desperately, she searched the ground around the vehicle until she found a rock. Heaving it into the window, the glass shattered and she kicked out

the remaining webbed pieces, and pushed it through onto the seat, leaned in, and pressed the waistband of her jeans on the jagged edges of the window to wrench the bottle caps from the radio knobs.

She held them, studying the red and white colors of the logo. Then, clenching them in her fist, she turned and ran back to the gate, barely missing a collision with a greasy old man holding a grimy brake drum. Still running, she stepped onto the sidewalk and ran faster, her legs pumping harder, harder. Soon, the walk fed into the main street of the tiny burg. She passed the shops in the small town—the bakery, the clothing store, the shoe store, the hardware store, and kept running, tears flowing like water from a faucet, her lungs heaving the frigid air in and out in a burning, rasping succession of breaths. Her body began to ache all over and she felt her muscles giving in to the burn. Finally, she stopped to lean against the brick building, her breath making long, streaming clouds in front of her.

She licked her stinging lips and let the tears keep falling. “Brit...” she whispered weakly, sorrowfully, “God, Brit—what happened?” She took a deep breath and drew her sleeve under her nose.

A creaking sound took her eyes to the shingle swaying above her in the breeze. ED’S CAFE. She rubbed her eyes dry on her sweatshirt and pushed the door open. Numbness descended on her as she found a booth near the back of the thankfully quiet diner. She heard herself order coffee from a tired waitress, felt her hands fumbling for the eCig in the pocket of her leather jacket. As she thrust the bottle caps into another pocket and filled her aching lungs with the feathery vapor, the waitress set the cup down in front of her, and she began to drink from it, thankful for the way it burned her already-raw throat.

Tru leaned her forehead into her hands, elbows braced at either side of the cup, its steamy, strong contents snaking upward to tickle her nose.

A heart could be broken, a heart could ache, a heart could be sick...Tru wondered why she never heard of anyone getting heart cancer. It seemed the most logical organ to be afflicted with cells that attacked themselves. Maybe it was because the heart could be in enough pain all by itself. Just from having loved. From having lost.

Long moments later, she had calmed. She was empty. The tears were gone, and she sat there, staring at the red vinyl of the booth seat across from her; her eyes were fixed on the brown foam rubber which seemed to have exploded from a small tear in the redness of it. She thought of how much it resembled a wound, and how much she felt like her insides were that foam rubber stuffing.

Across the aisle, a man got up from his booth and left an empty coffee cup, a dollar and a crumpled newspaper on the Formica tabletop, tossing her a brief expression of sympathy. Tru slid out of her booth and went over to get the paper. When she sat back down, she began to turn the pages, trying to focus on something other than the pain she knew lurked somewhere deep inside her like a swelling hunk of foam rubber.

Near the last page of the small gazette, was a photo: a young blond woman, eyes stark against an obviously bruised and tumescent face, sitting up in a white bed... Tru jerked spasmodically, knowing, and yet afraid to believe...her eyes fell to the caption:
‘Amnesia Victim Searching For Family...Do You Know Me?’
Below the question, the address of Montrose Memorial Hospital, and a phone number. Tru lifted the paper to her lips, pressing the photo against them. New tears began to stream down her cheeks. “Brit...” she whispered into the newsprint.